Photoplay (Jul - Dec 1936)

SUM^OM? PH3TCPLAY MAGAZINE FOR JULY, 1936 We Cover Ihe Studios Glare, dust, wind, salt water, sunburn! You use special creams, lotions, cosmetics to protect your loveliness from them — but without your knowing it, your eyes can ruin the whole effect! Pink edges, little wrinkles; that's from glare! Inflamed lids, cloudiness — from dust, wind, water. Tiny red lines and strain — from sunburn. . . . NOBODY wants to have ugly sunburned eyes in summer — so every one who knows is taking up McKesson's 1BATH. Always when you've been in the sun, fill the little silvery helmet and feel IBATH soothing away the "squint" and soreness — coaxing back flash and sparkle. Women who must be beautiful use IBATH as regularly as they wash their faces, so that their eyes are always clear and starry. Why don't you — it's a reliable physician's formula, only 50c at all good drug stores! Get it — and start being the girl with the beautiful eves todav ! ibath McKesson & robbins Manufacturing Chemists sine* 1133 CONTINUED FROM PAGE 47 | Pictures like the million dollar "Romeo and Juliet" are the reason "Three Wise Guys" has to be made so swiftly. It's a studio budget balancer George Sietz, who directs this, is M-G-M's head man for turning out entertaining films quicker than you can say Olivia de Havilland. Which takes us over the hill to Burbank where Olivia and dashi lg Errol Flynn are costarring once more. Their new film, a colossalstupendous, is "The Charge of the Light Brigade," built around Tennyson's sanguinary poem. The handsome set is the interior of the English Governor's palace in India. This is in 1854-6 during the Crimean war — the same war, by the way, that has Kay Francis as "Florence Nightingale." Warner's sort of have an option on the Crimean fracas. There is a ball in progress during this scene. The hoop-skirted girls and the brilliant scarlet coats of the soldiers make a pretty picture as the players wend through the intricate traces of a square dance. While the music plays. Errol, as the officer who causes the famous massacre, goes to greet an Indian potentate HENRY STEPHENSON, C. Henry Gordon and Robert Barratt are in the scene, too. It is one of those undramatic, but necessary bits, essential to every story. Michael Curtiz, the director, explained to us how he keeps his tempo alive through these interludes. This he does by keeping the camera continually moving. He does not take a long shot then a close up. He puts the camera on wheels and has it glide into the scene. The theory is that the eye tires more quickly when looking at a stationary object than it does a moving one. By rolling the camera, the audience gets the illusion of movement. The take over, we talk to Flynn. " How's your tennis, old son?" he asks us. We admit it is as bad as ever. "Mine's terrible. No backhand at all," he says, swinging an imaginary racquet. "I never get time to practice." Well on his way to being one of the most popular performers in the world, Errol is also the best tennis player among the actors. Only Frank Shields, Sam Goldwyn's discovery, can beat him. For all his unaffected geniality, there is an unreal quality about Errol. He is like the hero of an adventure-romance come to life He can do everything. But that's not so startling as the ease with which he manages it all. His background — Olympic Boxing champion, tennis and hockey star, pearl-diver, the mad-cap romance with glamorous Lili Damita, his adventures all over the world — is a press-agent's dream. Three minutes after you have left Errol, you can't quite believe that he's just one person. Now he's taking to writing and has already sold to some of the I" i ter magazines. Our conversation with Errol interrupted by the assistant director's whistle for lunch, wo go to Warner's liny restaurant, The Green Room. Olivia de Havilland. who joins us, belongs much more to the period of "The Charge of the Fight Brigade" than to the present She speaks in just above a whisper. When we asked her how it feels to play a love scene in front of the stage crew, she blushed. For all her sudden fame. Olivia is shy. However, when she gets on Shakespeare, her favorite subject, she is both articulate and tntense. We spent most of our time talking about "Romeo and Juliet." She likes to do period pictures, to which her fragile, lustrous beauty is ideally suited. " I had quite a time with this skirt at first," she told us. "The petticoat kept catching my feet and Errol would tease me. It was awful during those dances until I had the petticoat shortened." Our lunch finished, we go to the "Bengal Killer" set and watch a ferocious tiger almost get his. It is very interesting on this set. The cameramen and director work from a little movable cage in the center of the room, which is a butcher shop with prop meats hanging about. There are wire screenings, fifteen feet high, enclosing the room. To get the best view, we climb the scaffolding and, thirty feet in the air, run into Barton MacLane. Below us, Bobbie, the tiger, paces back and forth, switching his great tail. Only his trainer gets inside the wiring. The trainer carries hunks of real meat. He drops one hunk by the camera. When Bobbie dashes for that, the trainer runs to the other end of the room and calls Bobbie. This way, they get a shot of him prowling through the butcher shop. Two actors, supposed to be searching for the tiger, precede Bobbie across the shop. Their backs are turned to the big cat and they are supposed not to know that is he in the room. Their faces are tight. Ever since Charles Bickford was very nearly killed in a scene of this sort, actors have been leary of co-starring with man-eaters The scene has to be shot many times, for Bobbie keeps skipping out of camera range. At last, irritated, the tiger begins ominously twitching his tail. There is a tenseness about the set as they try to quiet him. Even throwing meat at his feet does no good. So quickly you can hardly see it, the cat springs up at a prop boy on top of the wire fence. The boy falls backward on his head. There is momentary confusion. The tiger clings to the wire, swinging his free paw. The trainer goes after him with a chair. WE climb down from the cat-walk and sneak quietly away to Columbia. What we are going to say now may be a little complicated. But if you will pay attention and stop wondering what you are going to do tonight, you should be able to follow us. Very few Columbia pictures are made at Columbia. And even fewer are released under their working title. For instance, " Fer-de-lance" will be called something else when you see it. And though it bears Columbia's trade-mark it is being filmed at Educational studios. Beefy Edward Arnold is the star. Some lucky Columbia employee will get a prize for thinking up another title for "Fer-de-Lance." Fer-de Lan< e is the name of a snake, one of the most poisonous species in the world. The scene we watched is a close-up (no snakes) of Arnold explaining to Dennie Moore and Lionel Stander, oft stage, just how he hopes to capture some thieves Arnold plays a peculiar sort of detective who does all his sleuthing without leaving his own home. Great work if you have a home. I PLEASE TURN TO PAGE 92 |